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The class gasped.
“Legend has it that fishermen will sometimes find these creatures in their human forms, and they’ll fall so in love with them that they’ll hide the selkie’s seal coat so that it can’t shift back. Then, they’ll take them home, marry them, and sometimes even start a family with them. But a selkie’s place is in the sea, so they never stop searching for their missing skin. And once they find it, they’ll disappear into the water and never be seen or heard from again.”
My eyes watered, and my throat burned as an explanation more palatable than the truth took root in the cracks of my broken heart.
“Clover?”
I hadn’t realized that I’d raised my hand until every face in the room was pointed in my direction.
I hadn’t spoken to a soul since the funeral, and I wasn’t sure that I was ready to start, but when I looked into Ms. Bell’s concerned brown eyes, the words just tumbled out of my mouth. “Ms. Bell, I think me Ma is a selkie.”
Thirteen years later, the cruel laughter of two dozen seven-year-olds still echoed in my ears as I scanned the island for seals, hoping one of them would show a glimmer of recognition. Nod in my direction. Maybe even wave.
But the seals were gone, just like I knew they would be. Because right behind the island, anchored about a hundred yards offshore, was a cruise ship the size of Mount Brandon.
Nine months out of the year, Ireland’s Eye was Howth’s little secret, but every summer, the tourists descended upon it in swarms. You could practically watch the island sink under the weight of all those Nike-wearing, picture-taking, flower-crushing foreigners. But the worst part was that their boats scared away the seals.
And the fish.
Which turned my da into an even bigger arsehole than he already was.
Most of the fishermen gave up on fishing during the summer months, using their boats to give tours of the island instead, but Oliver Doyle was “no fucking tour guide.”
He wasn’t much of a father either.
As if he were conjured by that thought alone, the sound of a van door slamming shut yanked me from the past back into the present with a violent, terrifying jerk.
Still decked out in his oilskins and wellies, my father walked to the back of the van, his boots crunching in the gravel driveway next to the house, and he pulled out a bundle of ropes as big as a washing machine.
My heart slid into my stomach, but not because of the nets. It was his posture, the scowl beneath his wiry blond beard, the stoop of his hulking shoulders.
The catch hadn’t been good. It never was in the summer.
And I was going to pay for it.
I walked as quickly and quietly as I could from the cliff’s edge back to my spot behind our house, but when my father’s gaze landed on me—tiptoeing through a patch of grass with a net that was very much still knotted in my arms—I felt like a deer that had been caught in the crosshairs.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
I could feel my pulse in my throat as Oliver stomped over to me with joyous wrath in his bloodshot eyes. He was looking for someone to take his frustrations out on, and by not having my chores done, I’d just served myself up to him on a silver platter.
I looked down at the net that I was frantically trying to untangle as he approached, too terrified to hold his stare.
“Nowhere, Da.” I tilted my head in the direction of the cliff without looking up. “I was just watchin’ the boats while I worked. This last net’s givin’ me trouble.”
“Watchin’ the boats, were ya?” He mimicked in a high-pitched voice before snapping, “Look at me when I’m talkin’, girl!” Oliver’s black wellies appeared in my line of sight just before his meaty, callous hand wrapped around the nape of my neck and jerked my head back.
I gripped the rope tighter and swallowed a whimper as he forced me to make eye contact with him.
“I was on one of those fuckin’ boats, workin’ me arse off all day, while you were up here, doin’ what? Lookin’ fer selkies and merfolk?”
I pulled my gaze away from his blazing blue eyes and glanced over at a stack of neatly folded fishing nets piled next to the shed. It was the least confrontational way I could think of to answer his question about what I’d been doing all day, but when his head followed my line of sight, the tightening of his grip on the back of my neck told me that I’d made a terrible mistake. Oliver didn’t want to see that I’d been working too. He wanted to be angry with me, and now, thanks to that simple glance, he was.
Oliver shoved me to the ground so fast and so hard that the wind was knocked out of me before I had the chance to scream. I landed on my side in the rocks, and the bone-crunching pain in my ribs immediately brought tears to my eyes.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry …
Straddling my body, Oliver pushed me onto my back and clutched my face with one hard, rough hand. The gray clouds seemed to gather overhead, watching the spectacle.
